“Welcome, Senator. Your office did not notify us that you would be coming today.” The Cynomy fidgeted and refrained from eye contact.
Bish replied with his best beneficent smile. “A small test, Tekki,” he said, “which you passed with ease by being here to greet me.”
A twitch, followed by a moment’s silence, and then. “I’m Brekki. Tekki is my uncle. And one of us is always here. Always.”
It was an indication of the Bos’s good humor that he tolerated the correction. Projecting the aura of a tolerant and friendly elder relative, he continued. “That being so, you knew I was coming.”
“Yes,” said the Prairie Dog, finally raising its head and tilting back far enough to meet the Yak’s gaze. “We saw the likelihood of it. Just as we saw the likelihood that you would not leave happy.”
Druz rushed ahead with a response. “Do not presume to tell the senator what he will be feeling. It is impertinent and you yourself acknowledge you can be mistaken.”
“I’m just saying. Don’t take it out on us when we do the work you give us and you don’t like the outcome. It’s like blaming the desert for being dry.”
Bish took a deep breath and centered himself. Clairvoyants always acted this way, mistaking vision for power. The little shit in front of him wouldn’t know what to do with actual power if the senator put it in his tiny hands.
“Friend Brekki, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Now that you’ve confirmed my presence, do me the kindness of informing your senior to come and brief me on your team’s progress. Also, an offer of refreshment would not be unwelcome.”
In response, the Cynomy began to tremble. “Can’t. Everyone else is busy or hard asleep. You get me. And I don’t have any refreshments for you because you’re not going to want it.”
The Sloth began to raise an arm toward Brekki but Bish gestured her to calm. Her defense on behalf of his own sensibilities warmed him, but disciplining a rude precog would not get him what he needed.
“Fine. If you are who I have, then you are whom I will use. At your team’s suggestion, I initiated a program to investigate a drug the Fant of Barsk call ‘koph.’ You informed me that doing so would trigger a sequence of possibilities leading to a great development affecting the Alliance. Has that come to pass?”
“Yes, Senator. The likelihood is a near certainty now.”
“Very good. So you can now tell me more about this development.”
“No, sir.”
“No?” Rudeness was one thing, but insolence and outright contradiction he would not tolerate. If it continued, he would make an example of this precog. He had plenty of other Prairie Dogs, after all. “The act of pursuing koph was supposed to bring it into focus. I was assured of this.”
“We experienced a complication,” said the Cynomy.
“You are scrying the future timelines. They vary in probability, not clarity. There should be no complications.”
“Normally, no, especially when we work in concert as we do. But in this instance, there is an Observer Effect, someone else attempting to study the same future and that very act prevents any of us from a clear perception of it.”
Another precog interfering? Now? His grandfather had never had to deal with such incompetence. “Have you identified the source?”
“Yes, Senator. Fairly completely.”
“And? Why wasn’t I informed? Do you know how easily I could have sent a Patrol vessel to deal with this interloper?” Bish’s voice had become strained with resentment at having to pull information from this pathetic creature.
“No, sir, that isn’t a viable option. The source occurred in the past and is long dead.”
“What? Where?”
“Barsk, sir. One of the first generation activists who forged their government had a powerful clairvoyant faculty, though largely untrained. She appears to have been quite interested in pursuing the koph development as well.”
“Let me see if I understand this. You told me to pursue koph, which meant engaging in covert operations against the inhabitants of a sovereign planet in clear violation of established Alliance law. This was supposed to bring our goal into sharp focus. And now, I’m to understand that some ancestor of the same Fant that my people have been working on has instead blocked your vision? What options does that leave?”
The Prairie Dog shrunk in upon itself and stared at the carpeted floor of the vestibule. Its reply came as a whisper. “Continue to pursue koph.”
“Continue?” Bish roared even as Druz presumed to place a hand on his arm. And yet, the audacity of her action restored his composure. She knew him well. He’d been just seconds away from wringing the life out of the worthless precog. Had the others seen that possible outcome? Had they sent Brekki as a sacrifice to appease his wrath. If so, he would not give them that satisfaction.
“Senator?” The Brady’s hand remained on his arm.
Bish thought of his grandfather, the consummate urbane statesman and projected that impression outward. His aide’s hand fell away.
“Continue to pursue koph? If doing so hasn’t already yielded the desired result, why continue?”
“But it has, Senator. The foreseen probabilities are lining up as predicted, only the resulting specifics are clouded from us. Continuing after the drug will cause competing futures to fall aside.”
“And this will reveal the development we seek?”
The Cynomy shrugged. “In a sense. Once a single timeline is inevitable, events will play out and the thing will be out in the open for anyone to see.”
Bish’s hands closed into fists as he stared down at the precog. “How is that helpful? If others can see it, what’s to keep them from taking advantage when it becomes known?”
“Oh. We know where it will happen. And we know you’ll be there.”
“What?”
“We can’t see what happens there, but that’s where the timelines converge. You need to go to Barsk yourself.”
Bish sputtered. “I … when?”
“Now, Senator. That’s why I didn’t bother with refreshments.”
He spun toward his aide, the tip of his horn coming dangerously close to gouging her head. “Druz! Is my ship ready?”
“As always, Senator.”
He paused and eyed the Prairie Dog. Had he just been played by the team of scryers assembled by his grandfather three generations ago, or did it just feel that way? Would it do any good to make an example of the spokesman they clearly were willing to sacrifice, or was this simply how they communicated with a world they didn’t fit with? But in the end, none of that mattered. The key to being an effective senator lay in pragmatism. The results they’d handed him were more important than his ego.
“Time to go then,” he said, dismissing the Cynomy from his plans. At least for now.
TWELVE. ANCESTRAL LANDS
IT had taken Jorl most of the morning to acquire a small boat that didn’t surpass his understanding of sailing. Under other circumstances, the irony would have amused him. During his time in the Patrol he had passed his preliminary exams to sit a conditional third board to his vessel’s pilot, but here at home he had never learned to navigate anything bigger than the simple craft needed to cross to the next nearest island. Unlike most men of his age, and especially since his return from offworld, he hadn’t felt the urge to travel from island to island.
He’d visited more than a dozen of Keslo’s shipwrights, but in every case some secret shibboleth slipped into the conversation had betrayed his ignorance and he’d been sent on his way. More than once he’d considered invoking his aleph and simply walking aboard an available vessel, but the realization that he’d be hard pressed to take it from its docking, let alone avoid knocking himself overboard or becoming hopelessly entangled in rigging prevailed. Near noontime, inspiration struck and he returned to the Civilized Wood and visited the academy. The provost asked few questions, both in deference to the mark on Jorl’s brow and his reputation as a serious scholar, and generated the necessary paperwork that would secure him a boat that fit his needs and abilities. It had belonged to an oceanographer with the academy. That scholar had set sail two seasons ago, taking a much simpler craft and leaving behind a research vessel that had the distinction of possessing a motor and gyrocompass, thereby freeing Jorl of the need to understand how to tack or trim a sail, read the wind, or navigate despite cloud-covered skies.